KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) foreign exchange reserves continued to decline and fell sharply by $497 million during the last week.

According to weekly foreign exchange reserves report issued on Thursday, SBP reserves decreased by $ 497 million to $ 9.226 billion during the week as of Jun 3, 2022 as against $9.722 billion as on May 27, 2022. The decline in SBP reserves is due to external debt repayment. During the period under review, reserves held by the commercial banks fell $98 million to reach below $6 billion mark.

Reserves held by the commercial banks declined to $5.95 billion end of the last week down from $6.048 billion a week earlier.

The total liquid foreign reserves held by the country also decreased by $595 million to stood at $ 15.176 billion as of June 3, 2022 compared to $ 15.771 billion.

The government is making efforts to build the foreign exchange reserves and China is likely to place some $2.5 billion with Pakistan.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022